Cold Outside
by the ersatz diplomat
Summary: "If it's the Ghost of Christmas Past, you're a little late." Harry gets into the holiday spirit. Set after Proven Guilty. Rated for language & use of alcohol.


I've never done a Christmas fic for this series, this is set sometime after _Proven Guilty,_ and is disgustingly shippy.

Happy holidays, kids.

_For I am a sinner in the hands of an angry God. Bloody Mary, full of vodka, blessed are you among cocktails. Pray for me now and at the hour of my death, which I hope is soon._

_– Sterling Mallory Archer_

* * *

It was a quarter past midnight when I answered a knock at the door. All I could see over a stack of gift-wrapped boxes and takeout containers were blue eyes and wind-whipped blonde hair, cast in a silvery light from the snowy streetlamp on the corner.

"If it's the Ghost of Christmas Past, you're a little late."

"Oh, thank god. It's cold as fuck out here." Karrin Murphy stared up at me from the bottom of the stairwell leading to my apartment. She slipped by me, dropped the boxes on the kitchen table and started dusting snow off of her gray wool coat. "I wasn't sure you'd be home."

"Did you call? I was at the Carpenters' earlier, I might have missed it–"

"My phone died."

She tossed it on the table, too. _Dead _was an understatement; the screen was completely shattered, as if dropped. Or thrown.

Murphy made a face as she untangled the scarf from her neck. I took it and helped her out of her coat to hang both on a hook by the door. When I turned again she was standing by the fireplace, warming her hands.

"So, uh…" I meant to ask what she was doing out and about in what was almost a blizzard, but the only sound I could make was, _"Whoa."_

"Take a picture, Dresden." Murphy crossed her arms and scowled. "It'll last longer."

Blindly, I reached to the top of the nearest bookcase for the present I'd received earlier that very day. I aimed and pressed the button. The old-school Polaroid clicked cheerfully and spat out a picture.

"Son of a _bitch_," she snarled, starting toward me. I waved the developing photo over my head where she couldn't reach it.

Honestly, she should have known better than to hand me a line like that.

"You look so _cute." _

She pushed a chair out of the way and stalked towards me in a way that should have been narrated by David Attenborough.

I compared the photo to the original as I moved backward, trying to put the table between us.

It was a pretty picture; the fireplace lent a heady glow to the image, her face flushed, caught in an expression of disbelief. Her hair had probably been neatly styled before she'd been out in the snow. Now it tumbled loose around her face to brush her shoulders, bared by a cream-colored sweater dress that would have just been a sweater on anyone taller. A pair of tan suede boots laced up over her knees.

...She wasn't dressed like that for _me_, that was for damn sure. I was just about to ask where she was keeping her gun when her fingers locked around my wrist.

"Hand it over."

"You smell nice."

"Thanks. Give it to me," she demanded.

"Okay, but you gotta buy me dinner first."

"Dammit, Harry." She plucked the photo from my fingers and tossed it onto the coffee table. Murphy sat on the arm of the sofa with a sigh, arms crossed over her chest.

"Special occasion?" I asked carefully, leaving the camera on the table.

"Family get-together at Mom's. And then a dinner date at that new place, downtown."

There was something in her voice that made me hesitate a second before I spoke.

"Well," I said, waving at my jeans, and the terrible red and green Christmas sweater Molly had given me. "I feel like I'm a little under-dressed for that."

"That's okay," she said, glassy-eyed, her teeth bared in a brittle smile. "I brought it with me."

I looked from her, all dressed-up and pissed-off, to the takeout boxes on the table; two expensive, untouched steak dinners and dessert.

It was pretty obvious she'd been stood up. On Christmas, no less.

_Yikes. _I wasn't exactly sure what to say about that, or what she wanted to hear. Luckily, Mister is better at this kind of thing. He leapt up onto the arm of the sofa next to her, purring loudly as she scratched his ears.

"You've been drinking," was what I said, worried.

"I only had–" she paused to count on her fingers. "About fifty bucks worth of champagne. Which sounds like a lot, but believe me, it–"

Her voice trailed off as she glanced from me to the open bottle of scotch Ebenezar had sent, the half-empty glass next to it on the table.

Murphy raised one eyebrow.

"Yeah, okay," I returned, maybe just a little defensively. I'd started in on it a few hours ago, and was finally starting to feel warm again after the massive snowball ambush I'd suffered upon leaving the Carpenters' place. "It's _Christmas._ But I wasn't out on the roads."

"Relax, Dad. I took a cab," she said as she stood and collected the takeout boxes, sidling past me to wedge them into the fridge. They barely fit, Charity had sent me home with an armful of leftovers earlier that day.

"Tea?" I offered, not sure what else to do.

"Sure."

I set the kettle on the stove, and gave the coals a stir, then took the dessert container from her hands before she could put it away. I hunted down two forks while the water boiled. She made two cups of tea and poured a generous splash of scotch into her own with a defiant glare at me, and then some in mine, when I shrugged in defeat.

We sat on the floor between the coffee table and the fireplace, where it was warmest, in relative silence except for the crackle of the fire and Mister's monster truck purr.

If she wanted to talk about being ditched on Christmas, she would have. I knew better than to say anything about what I thought of it, none of which was nice or helpful.

"What is this, anyway?" I asked around a mouthful of dessert. "It's _amazing_."

"Tiramisu, I think."

"Better than sex."

"You must not be doing it right."

"Oh, it's _right. _It's just not often." I said. "And rarely involves this much chocolate."

Karrin rolled her eyes, but she smiled, which was a start.

"How was the family?" I asked; only a nominally safe topic. "Belligerent and numerous, as usual?"

She made a face, and knocked my fork out of the way to take a huge bite of cake.

"That bad, huh. How's your mom? She seeing anybody?" I asked with a grin, and Murph half-heartedly punched me in the arm, but she laughed a little. "Your sister still pregnant?"

"Is she ever _not?"_ Murphy sighed.

"They have one kid already, right? The little redheaded demonchild who flushed your keys on Thanksgiving last year." I speared the last bite of cake before she could. "Spawn?"

"..._Shawn_," she corrected after a beat, and then cackled.

"Judging from professional experience, same difference."

"Rick has never been competent enough at _anything_ to be a demon," she said ruthlessly. "Or a father. But I guess they have medication for that now..."

I choked on the last of my tea, wide-eyed.

"Another round?" she asked brightly.

"Sure," I said, as she gathered up the empty mugs, and the next round was definitely more liquor than tea, but she was finally talking and even smiling.

"Oh, this is cute." Murphy had found the gift Billy and Georgia had given me – a card game with heros and swords, spells and monsters. "How do you play?"

"Well, one of the prerequisites is being a giant nerd."

"So you'll have the home field advantage, naturally," she said, as I started dealing out cards.

We played a few hands, mostly arguing about who had the better weapons (a Chainsaw of Dismemberment versus the Staff of Napalm) until she drew a Level One Potted Plant from the _Monster_ deck, and laughed so hard that she knocked over her mug.

"Shit. Sorry."

We both jumped up, she stumbled into me and I caught her, only swaying a little myself. "It's alright. I'll get a towel, you get the refills."

I had most of the mess cleaned up when she sat down next to me on the rug.

"Here," Murphy took the towel from me and pushed a stack of parcels wrapped in _Star Wars_ paper into my hands. "Open these."

There was a catnip mouse, which Mister promptly claimed, a box of fancy dog treats for Mouse, who was still at the Carpenters', having spent the day sledding with the kids. There were a few trashy romance paperbacks, obviously for Bob.

"Oh, wow. I can't wait to dive into..." I squinted at the title of one, snorting. "_Swipe Left for Love_? What does that even mean?"

"Those aren't for you. Here," she pushed the last parcel at me. "This one."

I opened it and dug through the sparkly snowflake tissue paper to find a custom leather shoulder rig and a few little boxes of hand-reloaded ammo, weight and velocity noted in her neat script.

Thoughtful, practical – just like her.

"For your forty-four. You shouldn't carry it in your coat pocket like you do, the hammer might get caught. You'll shoot yourself in the foot. I mean," Murphy rambled a little, tucking her hair behind her ear. "Not that you should be carrying it around anyway, since you _still_ don't have a permit–"

"Enabler," I accused, pulling her into a hug. "It's perfect, thank you. I'll think of you every time I shoot somebody."

"Merry Christmas." She smiled up at me, pleased and pink-cheeked as she took a sip from the glass of scotch in her hand. _My_ glass. "Glad you like it."

She had swiped my damn drink from the table when I wasn't looking, which was a feat, since I had hardly stopped looking. Lipstick smudged the rim, sheer and pink like expensive lingerie...

I shook my head and reached past her to get an itty-bitty box from behind the phone on the end table. "Here, this is yours."

"What's this?" Karrin asked as I dropped the present into her outstretched hand, and it was at that entirety-too-late moment that I realized that it looked kind of like a jewelry box.

"Oh, Harry," she said with a dangerous smirk, "I thought you'd _never_ ask."

"It's not–" I felt myself go red in the face. "It's not what you think."

She opened it and a tiny bell rolled into her palm. It dangled from a loop of leather and chimed, bright and cheerful.

"Oh!" Murphy smiled like I'd given her a handful of diamonds instead. "A gremlin bell."

"Yeah." A kind of charm against accidents and mechanical failures, an old biker superstition, though they were said to only work if given as gifts. This one would work, for real, though not for anyone but her. "You don't have one, do you?"

"No, I…" She fell silent as she studied it, tracing her thumb across the runes etched around the edge. "Did you make this yourself?"

I had cast it from part of the half-melted remains of the silver shield bracelet that had been ruined fighting Mavra's flamethrower-wielding goons. Anybody with a Bunsen burner, an iron crucible and the know-how to work a good-luck spell into metal could have done it.

"Yeah, I–"

Whatever I was going to say melted out of my brain when she pressed her mouth against mine, lips parting as she kissed me; sweet and warm like peppermint tea with too much sugar, like scotch that was older than both of us.

The little bell chimed as it slipped out of her fingers and landed in her lap, and then her hands were on my face. For being such a bad idea, it felt incredible. I was as surprised as she was when I returned the favor, threading one hand through her hair to pull her closer, and she made a sound I'd never heard her make before.

There was a heartbeat's worth of hesitation as we realized what we were doing, as we remembered that we had decided against it a while back.

"Sorry," she said, breathless, serious. And then I felt her smile. "You are much better at that than you are at CPR, though."

I _died – _dissolved into helpless, half-drunk giggles, and a second later so did she, burying her face in my shoulder.

"Just remind me to be broke at Christmas again next year," I said, and Murphy smacked me on the arm.

"Sorry. I'm sorry, I–" she took a deep breath and wiped at the corner of her eyes, trying to regain some composure. "I had no right to show up and drag you into my bullshit."

"It's okay. I drag you into mine all the time."

She said nothing, just smiled a little and sighed in a way that might have been relief, or disappointment, or both.

"Coffee?" I suggested, a little too quickly.

"I'll get it," she said, just as fast.

I watched her fumble with the coffeemaker for a moment, swearing under her breath. I grabbed my guitar from the corner just for something else to think about, and was clumsily plunking away at a Sinatra song when I felt her eyes on me.

Karrin set two cups of coffee down, just within reach. "Don't you know any Christmas music?"

When I looked up at her, she grinned and pressed the shutter button on the camera.

"I guess that's fair," I said, as she tossed the photo onto the table next to the one I'd taken. Then she curled up in the corner of the couch closest to me, and was asleep almost before I started into Schubert's _Ave Maria._

I scooped her up and put her in my bed, where it was warmer, so she could sleep it off in peace.

Then I poured myself another round, put on my coat and went out to clear the driveway. The snow hadn't quite stopped, and the wind was howling, but I didn't feel cold at all.

I woke the next morning on the couch with Mister batting at my face, demanding breakfast. Blearily, I sat up, blinking at the bright, icy sunlight that streamed through the basement windows, and I pressed both hands to my aching head.

The fire had burned out and the apartment was chilly. I had a blurry memory of a blanket being draped over me and one more lingering kiss, but she was gone, leaving nothing behind but our untouched cups of coffee and the photo I had taken…

And a glass of water and two aspirin, bless her. I grabbed both as I stood up and stumbled to the kitchen, holding onto the sink for a moment before I shook some cat food into Mister's bowl.

I jumped when someone started pounding on the door.

"_What?"_ I growled as I yanked the door open. "Oh, hey."

"Hey," my brother said cheerfully, without looking up from his phone. "Get dressed, I'm taking you to breakfast. They're doing never-ending waffles at _The North Pole._"

"You're going to a strip club." I pressed my fingers against the ache in my temple. "For breakfast."

_"We're _going. It's a holiday tradition."

"It is?"

"A new one, I just started it_. _Whoa_."_ Thomas stared up at me over his Ray-Bans. I glared. He raised his phone and snapped a picture, grinning. "Looks like you got started without me."

"What?"

He peered around me into the apartment. "You've got lipstick on your face and you smell like Prohibition just ended–" he leaned closer and sniffed– "and Calvin Klein. Is she still here?"

"Who?"

Thomas made a _duh_ face at me as he reached out and plucked a glittering blonde hair off of my ugly Christmas sweater.

_Busted. _Oh, boy. I was never going to hear the end of this.

"Gone," I said, as he followed me inside.

"I thought Karrin was dating ol' whatsisname." Thomas looked around, making a face as he picked up the nearly empty bottle of scotch. "The sniper."

"Yep."

_"And?"_

"And nothing, she got stood up and then came over here."

"Dressed like this?" Thomas held up the picture I'd taken. "Good god. Kincaid stood her up? Are we sure he's not dead in a ditch somewhere?"

"If he wasn't before, he might be now."

I yanked the picture from his fingers and left him in the living room as I went to change, tucking the photo into the paperback on the nightstand.

Thomas lacks boundaries, though, and followed me, still talking as I pulled on a clean t-shirt.

"So let me get this straight – a beautiful woman, one who you've had a little thing for since _forever_, stops by your house last night, all dolled-up and lonely and you guys... played cards?"

"Mostly."

"Don't bullshit me, Harry. If anything had happened, I'd know."

"Ew," I said. "And I don't have a little _thing_ for her–"

"No, you're right. The thing you have for her can be seen from outer fucking space–"

"And even if I did," I looked around for my boots, and found them behind the door. "The fuck am I supposed to do about it, anyway?"

_"Well–"_ he started, with a grin.

"Don't answer that."

"You asked. And you've still got–" he gestured at his face.

I scrubbed at my face with the back of my hand.

"Now you're just smearing it around." He sighed and tossed me my coat. "Just– oh, just leave it, I've got wet wipes in the car."

"Of course you do," I sighed as he dragged me out the door and into the snow.

"Honestly, I thought this would take more convincing. You never want to do anything fun," Thomas said, shoving me into the passenger seat of his ridiculous truck before climbing in himself, keying the ignition. "With _me_, anyway. But then again, I don't look as good in knee-high boots as some."

I slumped against the window with a groan.

"Aww. You're a good guy, Harry," Thomas put his sunglasses on me before backing his truck out of the driveway. "But you'd have more fun if you weren't. One of these days she's gonna break you in half."

"Please don't talk to me again until you're holding a pitcher of Bloody Marys."

"As long as you promise not to throw up in here."

"...Deal."

* * *

And a Happy New Year!


End file.
